PARIS.- The artist Jan Dilenschneider, who has acquired an international reputation through her exhibitions, and her philanthropy paints nature on a large scale. In every season, from summer heat to unexpected storms, the landscape surrounding her studio on Long Island Sound is her main source of inspiration.

Disconnected from the fluctuations of fashion and what is in favor on the international art market, Dilenschneider pursues her aesthetic explorations in the tradition of expressionist painters. She shakes up conventional proprieties by blending color and form. Her paintings go beyond faithful depictions of reality. Through shape, texture and hue, her works express feelings, conveying a vibrancy to be fathomed.

By reinterpreting her vision of reality, by sublimating it, Dilenschneider elicits a reaction, perhaps a questioning, a certain disquiet. While displaying clear harmony, her paintings could be the set of a stage on which a play’s final act unfolds in a world that is resplendent, yet in danger of imminent destruction.

“By displaying this Connecticut landscape—a leaf close up, grass dancing in the breeze, blue skies mirrored in crystal-clear streams, silhouettes of old trees in fields—I wanted to help protect the splendor around us so that future generations can likewise love it and make the most of it” Jan Dilenschneider explains.

The two key aspects of her work are COLOR and GESTURE. It has a pulsing regularity that concentrates the passion and sentiment that drive the artist. She begins each painting with a sweeping brushstroke that imprints her energy onto the canvas.

Her motions are swift and powerful. Setting brushes aside, she also uses scrapers and sometimes dives into the image with bare hands soaked in pigments to add, to blur and blend in, or to erase, altering the texture, magnifying its contrast and density. Her scenes captivate eyes that know how to glimpse this energy and depth of vision.

The colors evoke joyfulness, drawing attention to the unique color combination. When hues are juxtaposed and mingle, they begin to dazzle, almost insolently, and intensify the visual impact.

“I look into a scene to see color that no one else sees and I add it, or I modify color or enhance it to suit my artistic vision. I might choose a green against a violet or an intense blue against a yellow. Then I ask myself “Can I hear the color sing”?

She exhibits her large-scale works in ‘pairs’—in diptychs—or in triptychs. Executed simultaneously, they have the same energy, but can also be separated. She has recently been exploring the verticality of triptychs. A different kind of energy brings these paintings to life, but the vitality is ever-present: that power and brightness that make each of her depictions radiate.

Dilenschneider is influenced by the works of American landscape painter, Thomas Cole who sought “the sublime melting into the beautiful, the savage tempered by the magnificent”

As a forerunner of modern ecological concern, he wrote in his manifesto “the beauty of such landscapes is quickly passing away, the most noble scenes are made desolate. Another generation will behold spots, now rife with beauty, desecrated by what is called improvement; which, as yet, generally destroys Nature's beauty without substituting that of Art” Essay on American Scenery(1836)

Jan Dilenschneider adds: “Artists have a considerable responsibility for raising public awareness of the issues facing today’s society. These issues concern environmental matters in large part, in the same way as they concern global political imbalances and attacks on freedom of expression. I think art can play an effective role in these areas and bring positive change to restore hope. Yes, art can save the beauty of the world and protect nature. If words could say everything, we wouldn’t need painters!”